Do Not Let Them Tell You What To Do!

Do not let them tell you what to do. Do not let them tell you how to vote. Do not let them take away your right to choose. They cannot keep you from your caucus. They cannot keep you from the polls. They cannot stop you once you make up your mind to vote.

Our country was founded with the noble goal of giving control of the government to those who are governed. Our American Revolution saw the birth of our right to truly govern ourselves. In each generation since we have been met with attempts to suppress our right to choose. In each generation since we have awoken to this peril, and defended our rights anew.

We have been told that the medium is the message, but this is simply not true. The words we read, the words we hear are largely spun by huge media corporations each with their own cynical agenda. They would like for us to believe that whatever words they repeat must be true, and that they are messengers above reproach. They repeat words of accusation or praise until we are hypnotized into taking them at face value. They stage interviews and studio events, seeking to crown their own choice as the "only option", and cast doubts on any who seek to challenge the system. Make no mistake, they are in business to sell access and advertising to the highest bidder. The unseen hand that pays the media piper calls their discordant tune. They conduct themselves with no more concern for those who may be harmed in this modern arena than those in the time of the Romans had for the gladiators as they staged their bloody shows to distract and placate the masses. The corporate masters of these media outlets are themselves the servants of those with money and power. Those with money and power try to contain and control us by putting on such spectacles, to force us to embrace their self serving status quo, and hide from us the fact that this is not our only choice.

Not long ago a businessman named Herman Cain offered his experience as a business manager and his skills as a problem solver to help us avert the looming economic disaster we now face. He offered a bold yet unconventional plan to replace the bureaucratic tangle of taxation with a simple elegant alternative we all can understand. He called it "9-9-9". The solutions Herman Cain offered were so bold as to threaten those who hope to benefit from the dysfunctional system in which we now find ourselves. Through a combination of personal threats to his family — serious enough to warrant Secret Service protection — and through an unceasing drone of unproven accusation, Herman Cain was time and again prevented from getting his common sense message to the people, forced instead to address the deliberate distraction. We as an electorate were denied the right to decide for ourselves if we believed or disbelieved the accusations. They were repeated so often by the media corporations as to create the presumption of guilt with no proof and no respect for our tradition of "innocent until proven guilty". So intent on derailing the perceived threat to their corporate masters that they were willing to resort to tabloid styled smears to plant doubt in our minds. So intent on derailing Herman Cain that they were willing to participate in the systematic repetition of hearsay and misinformation which — coupled with threats against that good man's family — ultimately limited our list of choices to theirs.

Are we going to allow the corporate media outlets on the "left" and "right" to manipulate us so easily? Are we going to look the other way as they eliminate alternatives from our ballot? It is time for us to awaken, to heed the call, and to speak up for ourselves lest we be silenced forever. We have the right to choose. We have the right to choose more than just an "acceptable" slate. We can choose to write-in any name we please. They will try to tell us that our write-in vote will not matter, or that we are "wasting" our vote, but the only votes that will be wasted will be those cast in surrender. In the face of your write-in vote for Herman Cain they will have to admit that their machine politics failed at least this once. In the face of your write-in vote for Herman Cain these "powers that be" will know that they failed to bully at least one brave American voter. No matter your party, your faith, or your background, this question of choice affects all of us. This is no longer just about Herman Cain. This is about our fundamental right to choose.

Do not let them tell you what to do. Do not let them tell you how to vote. Do not let them take away your right to choose. They cannot keep you from your caucus. They cannot keep you from the polls. They cannot stop you once you make up your mindto vote.

No matter your party, your faith, or your background, or how you will vote in the final election, this primary is your time to make a stand.  Now is the time to stand up for everyone's right to self determination. Now is the time to vote for Herman Cain.

© 2011-2012 James N. Riley, Jr., who is solely responsible for its content
(copying permitted under CC-SA 2.0 License).

Why the loss of Herman Cain is bad for America

I supported Herman Cain because of his take on economic issues. The system is broken. Herman Cain has the executive skills to fix those problems. I remain unconvinced that any of the other candidates running for the GOP nomination possess that set of skills (not to mention the likely nominee for the Democrats). I feel the same sense of hypocritical failure on the part of the GOP to be true to their own beliefs that I felt from the Democratic Party (a feeling that eventually prompted me to take leave of the latter). I don't blame Herman Cain for this failure, I blame those who chose political expediency over principal. Convincing Mr. Cain to withdraw from the contest will not convince me to vote for a GOP candidate who is less threatening to the establishment, nor will it somehow make me view the Democrats as a lesser evil.

No business or party is too big to fail. Unfortunately neither is a country. We can and will fail if we do not fix things. Thanks to threats to his family, and groundless smears against his character, our best hope to fix things was driven from the field. An ends does not justify the means, and the means used to get Herman Cain out of the race were wrong. To simply go pick one of the candidates more acceptable to those who drove him out rewards that despicable behavior.

It is for this reason that I intend to caucus for Herman Cain here in Maine in February, and why I hope others will caucus for him and vote for him as a write-in before then. A groundswell of support for non-candidate Herman Cain just might send a message to those who thought they could defend the system of patronage and entitlement by removing someone they mistakenly believed was a threat. The threat is the very system of cronyism they seek to protect.

American Media Bias

With Walter Cronkite's passing, it seems our last unbiased television journalist passed. What we are left with today is opinion TV posing as news. CNN barely hides their bias towards the Democratic Party, Fox News barely hides their bias towards the GOP.

I'm watching Candy Crowley interview Herman Cain, and continuously trying to force him to accept her interpretations of his words. What happened to reporting the news and letting the viewer draw their own conclusions. It's as uncomfortable for me as watching FoxNews interviewing a Democratic candidate. The interviewer's questions are loaded questions that systematically try to guide the person interviewed towards accepting the interviewer's conclusions.

Walter Cronkite had his opinions. He also had a sense of professionalism and the ability to keep his opinions out of his reporting. I have lived in places where local news follows the "party line" of those in power. It taught me to recognize bias and read around it. We have become so spoiled in our country that we accept what is reported as fact. We are losing our ability to think critically and question our sources. The paychecks for the personalities at CNN and Fox News come from advertising revenue. Far from being independent journalists, they are entertainers who will lose their jobs if they stray too far from the expectations of those who sign their paychecks.

Occupy This!

First let me say I am currently not the least bit wealthy (wondering how long I can keep paying for the servers I am using to develop new software when other bills go unpaid), but I was actually more content when I was a penniless wandering ascetic monk in Thailand. It really doesn't matter to my relative happiness or state of contentment if one person on the planet has 99.999999% of all the wealth and my wallet remains empty. What affects my contentment is whether I have what I need. What I need is clothing, food, shelter, and medicines. Everything else – cell phones, democracy, social equality – are all in fact wants.

We live in one of the wealthiest and most self indulgent societies on the planet. We are the wealthy Wall Street bankers to the worlds working poor. Yet we are insensed when someone else has even greater wealth than we do.

These "Occupy Wall Street" protests are – in my opinion – are mis-directed democracy. We can vote both in the ballot box (it requires participating in all elections, not just showy ones like the presidency) and we can vote "with our feet" by not buying products and services from those who pay execs excessively (or not buying products and services from the country that is occupying Tibet). Who pays those execs unfair salaries? We do. Who pays the Red Army to occupy Tibet? We do.

The Real Problem With Our Governmental System (HUMOR)

Apparently this has been circulating around the Internet and I have yet to find an attribution other than "my father sent this to me" or "aunt so-and-so passed this along". Warning, this is humor, albeit a bit edgy (I've snipped the slightly classist conclusion)

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH OUR GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM

The folks who are getting free stuff don't like the folks who are paying for the free stuff. Because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff.

And the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even MORE free stuff on top of the free stuff they're getting already.

Now the people who are forcing people to PAY for the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING the free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced and racist.

So the people who are GETTING the free stuff have been convinced they need to HATE the people who are PAYING for the free stuff because they are selfish.
And they are promised more free stuff if they will vote for the people who force the people who pay for the free stuff to give them even more free stuff.

.

.

.

One site that re-posted this included a political cartoon poking fun at corporations accepting handouts from government while advocating limited government. I think this is an element of our human nature that we tend to view our problems as being external to ourselves. We are happy to accept things we view as benefiting ourselves, but then resent things that benefit others. :)

Another New Blog

Today I am moving my blog to a new blogger account so I can manage it within my Google Apps account instead of my personal Google account. It gives me an excuse to freshen up the appearance and clear out old clutter! :)